Woman charged with assault after scuffle with police caught on video

A woman who had a tight grip on a Jersey City police officer's hair and refused to let go was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer and other offenses Thursday, authorities said.

Police were responding to a car crash in which three people were injured on Armstrong Avenue near Martin Luther King Drive at 1:54 p.m. when they encountered a large crowd at the accident scene, Jersey City spokeswoman Ashley Manz said.

Police were still dispersing the crowd about 30 minutes later when Kimberly Sanders, 35, of Jersey City, got into a dispute with one of the officers, Manz said.A video of the incident, posted on The Hood Report Facebook page, shows Sanders and a woman police officer entangled and both of them swinging wildly at each other. The video also shows two other female officers intercede with punches in an attempt to loosen Sanders' grip on the other officer's hair.

In the video, Sanders and the one officer are seen going to the ground and then another officer pulls out her baton and hits Sanders in the leg or ankle multiple times, until Sanders lets go of the officer's hair.

Sanders is then arrested and taken away. Aside from aggravated assault, Sanders is charged with failure to disperse, obstruction of a governmental function, resisting arrest and bail-jumping, Manz said.

Regarding the crash, a pedestrian was struck when a car veered off Armstrong Avenue and crashed into a building, Manz said. The driver, a passenger and the pedestrian were taken to Jersey City Medical Center and are in stable condition.The accident remains under investigation.